


second only sons

by thepaperbones



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Daddy Issues, Engagement, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pain, Power Dynamics, Rebellion, Sad Ending, Tragedy, Unrequited Love, You Have Been Warned, fundy is a sad sad fox, just me projecting my daddy issues, mushroom symbolism, prepare to be FOCKEN SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27902926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepaperbones/pseuds/thepaperbones
Summary: he was tired of being under someone else’s thumb, of coming in second place. he’d stopped believing in karma a long time ago. if the world really was as righteously counterbalanced as he’d hoped, maybe fundy wouldn’t have experienced loss after loss. he wasn’t sure what he’d even done to deserve that scale of heartbreak. it didn’t matter in the end.in which fundy comes in second place, consistently.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Floris | Fundy, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Eret & Floris | Fundy, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 17
Kudos: 189





	second only sons

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first ever work, previously "if i'm not number one then i'd rather be lonely" from marina and the diamonds's performance on conan o'brien. the title is a play on, to quote my beta reader lieyuu, "only children. you are the singular child but you are the second anyways". jumping on that fundy angst train since the wedding is in five minutes woo nothing could possibly go wrong there. anyway this was inspired by someone writing the gayest h/c dnf hcs and me commandeering my daddy issues to make it work. writing this has made me realize exactly how allergic to writing dialogue i am but you know what as long as i can do angst and yearning things are going to be a-okay.
> 
> edit: this aged like fine wine

fundy believes in karma. 

he’s never given much thought to higher powers and all that. why should he? it’s always been him (and wilbur), making a life for himself. but he believes in karma. 

his life was a simple one. he stayed loyal to his friends (even when they didn’t stay loyal to him) and he didn’t pick fights like tommy or dream. he’d been a follower for most of his life. fundy was happy to joke around with his friends. he told himself he didn’t need anything more than that.

sometimes he regretted that. 

fundy had tried to lead; he’d rebelled against his father just to feel anything at all, just for a scrap of praise or anger or contempt. anything at all. but then again wilbur had always been consumed with his vision - his ambition, his war, his l’manberg, his politics. 

the first time he’d rebelled against his father, it’d been under someone else’s orders. as wilbur was forced to run, as he grabbed tommy and fled the scene of his mistakes, fundy noticed that his father had never looked back. he could grin and pretend it all glanced off of him (fundy was good at hiding his emotions), but he’d lain awake that night, staring at the dark wooden ceiling above his bed, and he’d thought about alternate universes. 

perhaps there was a different timeline, one where things weren’t a string of tragedies for him. he imagined a world where maybe wilbur had begged him to run with him and tommy, where he’d never leave his son with The Enemy. hell, maybe there was a world where COCONUT2020 had won, where wilbur would spare him a glance at the podium, where fundy would finally feel his father’s affection and pride, like the sun breaking through stormy clouds. 

the fox thought about that world even as he raised his axe to tear down the walls of l’manberg, his father’s work. he could feel his father’s gaze on him, even from afar, and fundy knew in the back of his mind that he’d never measure up. 

wilbur liked to pretend that he cared about fundy, that l’manberg had been built to protect his son (supposedly his greatest treasure), but they both knew, although it’d never been said, that wilbur would pick tommy over fundy in a heartbeat. 

his second rebellion followed quickly, easily. it hadn’t been a great day to begin with- most days under schlatt’s rule weren’t- but he couldn’t remember feeling anything but cold. the fox had savored the icy feeling of the wind as it whipped past him, cementing in his frigid heart. he’d watched the flag burn with a feeling of sick satisfaction, even as his friends, his family, watched. fundy heard their reactions- niki’s outrage, eret’s quiet disappointment. everything from betrayal to anger to fear, wrapped up in a neat little ball of hurt for him to internalize.

and he had never wanted to hurt wilbur, but he thought he deserved love. he could still feel his father watching, from beyond the grave now. distantly fundy remembered the funeral, lingering behind to stare at his old man’s tombstone. he hadn’t shed a single tear, which he felt bad but not too bad about. 

choosing eret was his third rebellion. eret had looked at him differently, like he wasn’t just a legacy or an obligation, and he felt seen in a way that he hadn’t in years. 

a good son, he knew, would have stayed dedicated, would have devoted his life to his father’s legacy. but fundy was sick and tired of legacies and power and ambition. 

he was haunted now, not by the memory of wilbur but by his ghost. most times he brushed him off, checked the rage rising in him at wilbur’s relentless optimism when fundy could still remember almost every time he’d felt disappointment at his father’s hands. 

fundy was used to coming second. 

he knew he’d be off to the sidelines forever, reduced to something and not someone. 

he knew it even as dream announced their engagement, that he was nothing but another grab for power. fundy understood that dream was only trying to curry favor with eret, amassing his allies and his political power; the fox tried to fault him for his actions but could not.

dream reminded him of wilbur sometimes, with the plotting and the leading, a confidence that shone brighter than the sun, one you couldn’t help but admire. 

he knew it when dream’s kisses had nothing behind them but pity and guilt and hunger for something different, could feel the limp way dream held his hand and looked at him absently with only tragedy in his eyes.

he knew it when dream came home late with mushrooms in his hand and a dazed, lovestruck grin on his face, when he’d given him a tired handful of poppies and a half-hearted kiss on the forehead. the fox had to stop his tears from dripping into the mushroom soup they’d eaten for dinner that night.

on the nights dream slept in their house, he slept in their bed. it always felt like he was miles away anyway. 

fundy knew dream didn’t love him and that dream knew he knew. he let himself hope anyway.

fundy was a smart fox. he’d known that dream would turn on them eventually, had seen it from miles away. he wasn’t surprised by the mania in dream’s eyes on that fateful day. in the end, it wasn’t the battle that hurt him. 

he forced himself to smother something ugly that stirred in his chest at the way dream looked at george. fundy knew dream wasn’t his, had never been his to begin with. he saw george, pinned to the ground, and the look in his eyes looked like hope being released from pandora’s jar, something inhuman fizzling out and dying a hero’s death. 

he didn’t mind that george was something more to dream. and something primal, akin to a sadistic kind of glee, swept him away. he tried to convince himself it was just wilbur, even if he knew better. fundy watched impassively, from the sidelines as always. he waited, like death with her huge vulture wings, for his moment. 

he was tired of being under someone else’s thumb, of coming in second place. he’d stopped believing in karma a long time ago. if the world really was as righteously counterbalanced as he’d hoped, maybe fundy wouldn’t have experienced loss after loss. he wasn’t sure what he’d even done to deserve that scale of heartbreak. it didn’t matter in the end. 

the fox was good at pretending. his father had taught him a long time ago how to conceal what he felt, one of the few valuable things that wilbur had ever taught him. fundy could slide on a smile easily, make it look like the hurt rolled off of him like rain on the back of a duck. he’d slather on his best, biggest grin when words crumbled inside him like the ashes of a nation. 

so when george closed his eyes, waiting to be banished to the legions of the hallowed dead at the hands of his greatest and only lover, fundy looked away. he’d decided long ago to at least spare them that. he was not surprised when he heard only silence. 

then a muted thud. a sword hitting the soft ground. his heart sank a little more, and he felt sick for it; he couldn’t bring himself to look back when he heard sobbing that was not george’s. the kind of sobbing he’d hear when he made his breaths slow and closed his eyes, on those rare nights when there was someone else next to him in his bed.

if he’d looked, he would only have been made more bitter by the way george and dream could not look away from each other. if he’d seen the way dream cradled george’s face in his hands with tears streaming down his face like silent rain and whispered that he couldn’t. 

maybe fundy would’ve been softened if he’d seen the look in dream’s eyes, angry and fearful and soft, like he was just a boy running away from the world again. the kind of look fundy knew so intimately, the look he’d worn in private for years.

“my dream,” george whispered. it was a sentiment that should have remained private were it not for fundy’s fox hearing. he felt as though he was about to be ill. violently. 

he muttered a low “what the fuck.” dream didn’t look back. fundy clenched his fists. 

when finally he collapsed, it was in george’s arms, and george finally broke his gaze from his lover, fixating it finally on fundy, in the distance.

something like “i’m sorry” hung between them. the hybrid brushed it off, walked away. he wasn’t sure it would have done anything anyway. 

he let them have their moment, murmuring to each other in the soft way that only lovers do, and even as he turned his back on dream, he let the familiar patterns of coming second consume him once again. 

fundy believed in karma a long time ago - three heartbreaks and a couple betrayals, to be exact. he wasn’t a winner. his story was bound to be buried in the dust of greater ones.

and he would not fight for it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, hope y'all liked this! leave kudos if the urge strikes you, or don't if it doesn't. consider yelling at me on twitter @thepaperbones. please check out @lieyuu and @fensandmarshes for some lovely incredible dnf fics.


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